The book, A Boy No More, by Harry Mazer, is about a young man called Adam Pelko who has to live with the trauma of the Pearl Harbor attack, where he lost his father in the US Arizona ship. Upon relocation to San Diego, alongside his sister and mother, the young man is faced with the challenge of reconstructing his disturbing past.
To make the matters worse, he receives a disturbing letter of the unfortunate events in Hawaii through is best friend called Mori, who is requesting for his assistance to help release his detained father of Japanese descent. Adams makes a journey to Fresco to break the news to Mori’s uncle about his brother’s arrest.
Adams’ subsequent journeys to Fresco were an eye-opener of the deep resentment that the American society held towards the Japanese. Upon reaching Fresco, Adam is surprised that the whole family of his friend was detained in the Japanese confinement campsite at Manzanar.
Reflective analysis
Adam is faced with several dilemmas. To begin with, he lost his father in the Pearl Harbor attack, where the Japanese were the aggressors. Besides, his best friend Davi happens to be an American of Japanese origin. Thirdly, the general public’s mood is an open contempt towards anybody who is of Japanese origin. Therefore, going to Manzanar, where the Americans of Japanese descent were detained was very risky.
Lastly, Adam was afraid of losing his best friend forever if he did not do anything to respond to his distress call. Having been a friend to Davi from childhood, Adam was sure that most the Americans of Japanese descent in the dentition camp were not a party to the Pearl Harbor attack. Adam has to make the hard decision of choosing friendship over loyalty to the blanket law of detaining the ‘Japanese.’ Adam makes the dreadful journey to Manzanar against the will of his mother.
The author presents an interesting reflection of a traumatized boy growing into a young man in a nation where the citizens of Japanese descent are treated with contempt and open discrimination in the name of communal punishment. As a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation was crippled with destruction, and the resentment was turned to the Americans of Japanese descent.
A reader can easily discover the open guilt and prejudice directed towards members of the society of Japanese descent as a way of justifying the mentality of the blame game.
Despite the challenges of balancing education, low paying job, taking care of his mother and sister, and maintaining a relationship with an older girlfriend, Adam manages to make the trip to Manzanar, which is more than two days walk without even informing his mother about it. This decision creates a very serious conflict between Adam and her mother since she shares the same public opinion supporting the detention of the Americans of Japanese origin.
Personal reflection
From the book, A Boy No More, the author had succeeded in detailing the life of young people during the Second World War, when divisions in the society were created by simple prejudice towards the Japanese. Despite losing his father in the hands of the Japanese invaders, Adam rises above ethnic discrimination to assist his friend, who is of Japanese descent. He does this against the will of his mother.